Chapter 3 (part 2)

Echo knew she had shifted into her human form. She could no longer hold the form she wanted. It was her human side that was failing her, so to be fixed, she had to change into that fading form. It's just how it works. She struggled to stay conscious and finally she was jolted awake. She could feel arms carrying her, making it feel like she was flying. That is, until her back touched lightly to a warm bed.



She kept slipping back and forth from being awake and blacking out. She couldnt even remember if she had managed to speak. She thought it was a dream, but she imagined she told Dymetri that she was giving up. After that, the darkness just seemed to swaller her up that much more quickly. It wasnt long until she was plunged into the black and the painfully loud pulse of her heart in her ears slowed and stopped. 'Finally...quiet..' she sighed in her head, and disapeared.



They say that as you die, your life flashes before your eyes...



Echo was falling into the first scene in the many flashbacks.



'Echo was looking into a crib at a baby boy. She, herself, couldnt be more than three. She stared at the sleeping child.



"Mama..? When is Tobi gowing to wake up. I wanna pway with my baby brover." Her voice was high and whiny as she called out loudly to her mother.



"Shh. Let the little guy sleep. You've played with him all day Carus. It's time for the little princess to sleep too." Her mother smiled down at her.



King Zavior's voice floated from down the hall. "Where's my wife? Sanella!" He called. He was angry for some reason.



Sanella looked at her daughter fondly for a minute, an apology in her eyes. "Mommy will be back in a few minutes. Please dont wake up Tobi.." Then she walked out of the room.



Curiosity grabbed hold of Carus' attention and she silently stalked her parents. She finally found them after many minutes, in a heated argument in the library.



The library was a beautiful room, filled with thousands of shelves and many many more books. There were two huge desks at the back by the window and chairs and rugs added colorful splotches to the room. It was Carus' favorite room in the castle. And her mother and
father were in the middle of the sunlit room, yelling.



"DO YOU KNOW WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE NOW?" Zavior shouted. "WE CAN'T KEEP HER! IT'S AGAINST THE LAW! NO HALF-BREEDS ON THE THRONE! OR EVEN IN LINE FOR IT! SHE MUST BE KILLED! THE BLOODLINE CANNOT BE TAINTED!" Finally, the king broke down. "Im going to lose my baby girl.." He crumbled to the ground.



Sanella knelt beside him. "The people dont know yet. Not even about me. Do you not think our son wont turn out the same? For Gods' sake Zavior, pull together. This is not the face of the king." She lifted his chin up so he could look up at her. "Zavior..if she dies. I will be right beside her. "



Zavior stared up in horror at his wife. "No....no Sanella. No. Please! GODS PLEASE NO!" He pulled her down and held her like she was his only lifeline. He burried his face in her hair, shaking with broken sobs.



Sanella kept her head up, not a trace of a tear.



Carus stared at her parents for a moment longer before they noticed that they were being watched. Fear flitted across Sanella's beautiful dark features and she raced over to her daughter. Sanella scolded the girl quietly. "Carus. You were supposed to be in bed."



Carus looked at her mother with frightfull eyes. "Mama...what's gowing to happen to me..?"

Sanella looked down at her only daughter, tears welling up, threatening to spill over. "You're going to go on a trip. To visit some friends of ours for a while. They'll take good care of you. But it isn't safe for you to be here right now, sweety. So just trust mommy and daddy. Okay?"

Carus nodded, tears streaming down her face. She looked up at daddy. "When do I have to weeve?"

Zavior looked down at her unsmiling. "Soon. You'll have to leave very soon. By tomarrow. To be safe."

Sanella looked back at him, startled. "Will they really want her gone so quickly? But.." She mouthed the next words. "Who will we give her to?"

He looked down at his tearfull wife. "Yes they will. And Anton will take her to her new place to stay."

"Is it wise to trust Anton?"

"He has not threatened us, he is a guard. He will be faithfull or will be releived of his duties permanently. He knows that."

"I mean...can he know about her being hidden? Wont he tell the others? It will all spread. Our efforts will be for not."

"Nonsense. Now get her to bed and pack the necesities for her. She will leave before first light."

Sanella's tears finally started streaming down her cheeks as she looked back at her confused daughter. "Come on Carus. Let's get you some sleep."

**Scene change

Anton was carrying the sleeping little girl. His master had given him the address of an orphanage. It was where she would stay until the right family came to take her home.

Chapter Three (part 1)

Everything was settled. Echo was staying in the castle, in cat form of course. She had an immense amount of fun strutting around the castle, acting like she owned the place at first. She also found, to her enjoyment, that cat hair clung very nicely to the king's throne. Most of the royals were annoyed with her, but Dymetri's mother relished in the thought of such a beautiful cat. Dymetri was just glad that Echo was still there and his to hold. Kendra had named Echo's cat form Kikii and had a lot of fun pampering the 'furry kitty'.



But even with all this power in such a small black, white booted, form; Echo was becoming depressed. Because she couldn't be of use to anyone, and everyone was still on high alert, looking for 'the whore who jumped,' she was losing her sanity. The wall she had up to block all her bad memories was crumbling. Often times, she could be found padding slowly and sadly down the hallway, her head hanging so low to the floor that her pink nose was almost touching the tile. Kendra, realizing this, tried to get her spunky, princess of a cat back to normal, to no avail. Instead it made Echo feel even worse that she was troubling everyone else.



Even Dymetri began to notice something was very, very wrong. Most mornings he found Echo(Kikii) huddled in a corner in the room, curled as tightly as possible into herself. A couple times he managed to coax her into changing into her human form hoping to find out what was wrong, but even now she was refusing...or she couldnt.



Echo was tempted with food and water, on occasions milk. But she ate and drank nothing. The depression of her past was crashing down on her without mercy. Soon enough, the dying worry filled Dymetri's golden orbs permanently. He watched Echo thin and deteriorate before his eyes. There were many days that she did nothing but hide in the corner, unable to get up.



This morning was different though, she no longer had enough energy to hold her cat form. Dymetri walked into his room that evening to see the girl laying in her corner, her hair unkempt, clothes falling off her once slender frame, and breathing shallow. He rushed over to her, whispering as he went. "Echo? Please Echo, wake up."



The prince picked her up very carefully and carried her over to his bed. She felt very small and breakable in his arms as her head rested on his shoulder. He began noticing things that he never did when she was a cat. Her skin (that he once noticed was getting darker becasue of the colors of fur she chose) was deathly pale, and her night hair had lost it's sheen as it brushed against the prominant bones of her shoulders.

When she was on the bed, he covered her emaciated frame with a light blanket. He looked up in time to see her eyelids flutter open and her breath catch in her thoat. Her voice was barely a whisper when he spoke. "Dymetri? I ca..cant do this anymore." A tear slid down her cheek as her voice broke.

"What? What do you mean?" He leaned down, closer to hear her frail voice and to catch the tear. "Are you sick? What do you mean." His voice was thick with worry.

Echo attempted at a smile, but she could barely turn up the corners of her mouth. "No, I'm not sick. I just cant...live anymore. Everything that has happened...in my ..li..life. It's just...just too...much....I can't go on anymore."

She turned her face away from him, her breathing becoming a pant as she struggled to explain. She new she didn't have much time left and that thought made her almost giddy with releif.

Her breathing pattern stuttered like she had held in a breath, but that wasn't it. She could hardly breathe on her own at this point.

Dymetri lowered his head a little closer to listen to her heart faintly beat. His pain-filled gaze followed her neckline up to her eyes, watching the blue hide behind her lids again. Her heart stuttered. He had little time.

Dymetri rushed to his door and threw it open. He dashed down the long hall to his mother's quarters at a blinding speed. He skidded to a halt, panting. "Come. Please. Quickly." The fear in his voice was enough to get her off her feet.

Kendra held a million questions in her eyes but dared not speak any. She watched him sprint back to his chamber and followed at a quick, human pace.

Dymetri flew to the bedside in time to hear Echo's heart give one last beat, and then the room was completely silent.